An Accurate Unsteady Hybrid Flowfield Approach for Hight Altitude Maneuverability

Accurate prediction of aerodynamic thrust augmented maneuver forces, plume flow fields, and resulting signatures is a critical part of assessing the performance of defensive missile systems. These flow fields can contain both continuum and rarefied flow regimes that dynamically change during maneuvers. Current modeling techniques often need significant amounts of computational time to provide accurate representations of the flow fields and observable signatures associated with such maneuvers. A hybrid method that automatically couples continuum and rarefied models to represent all regions of the flow would reduce the necessary computational time, increasing responsiveness to customers while producing highly accurate flow field, force, and signature predictions. This effort addresses the current gap in our ability to correctly account for unsteady, complex three-dimensional effects, such as angle-of-attack, multiple nozzles, and plume/hardbody interactions, whose flow character spans the continuum to rarefied regimes. In this Phase II effort, SSI proposes to develop a fully functioning, computationally efficient, MPC-based software toolkit, the MPC Accelerated Toolkit for Transient Aerodynamics and Signatures (MATTAS), which has been explicitly designed to support the calculation of aerodynamics, aerothermodynamic flowfields, and electro-optical (EO) signatures. The Phase II code will be verified and validated against accurate DSMC calculations and flight test data.